Monthly Archives: October 2024

A Strange Occurrence

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It is getting dark now and cool, so I got a blanket out of the metal chest I keep in the hammock gazebo for this very purpose.

I climbed into the hammock and of course Coco jumped up as well.  Once I managed to wrestle the blanket out from under him, I tried to open it up but it stubbornly refused to be unfolded!  I pulled and pulled and finally was able to pull it apart. It was as though something was gluing it together.  I investigated and found a thick glob which I pulled off the part of the blanket it still clung to and this is what I found:

A huge caterpillar had woven its cocoon into the fabric of the blanket!!!

I again tugged very hard to get it to release its hold, photographed it and thew it onto the lawn. Then I tossed the blanket out to cover my legs and feet, but alas, It again would not fully unfold itself.  So I investigated and found a second cocoon!  Here it is.

Now I am comfortably covered against the air getting ever cooler but alas, the mosquitos have arrived and in spite of Coco’s ever vigilant snapping to capture them,  in this Dengue area, I’ve decided it is time to go up to the house.

UPDATE: I found another one!

Garden Duty for the Sunday Whirl Wordle, Oct 13, 2024

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Garden Duty

It is no witchcraft,
this metamorphosis of garden.
For these past weeks,
I have been a whirlwind
of paintbrush, clippers, shovel and trowel—
shifting and planting plants,
then placing offerings
on the ledge built into the freshly-painted garden wall.
Plants stripped of their dead leaves
and spaced between stone hearts
 give new breath
to this beloved garden, grown rough with age.

in the former birdbath now filled
with dirt and profuse with flowers,
flightless birds of clay
are guardians of a fledgling
fallen from its nest and buried here.

Birds that can fly, do,
then circle  home
to weave between the  tree limbs and the vines—
One guardian on the highest limb
a sentinel perhaps for all.
It’s striden call
signing a mystery
the gardener has no hand in.

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle 675  the prompt words are: witchcraft metamorphosis garden whirl fly siren sign breath stone circle 

Lampmakers, for DVP Quadrille Prompt, Oct 14, 2024

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Click on photos to enlarge.

 

Lampmakers

My husband
trapped light.
Sculpted it.
Forced it to his will.
Made art of it.
Made me
complicit in making it
more than something to see by.
We surrounded light
and channeled it.
Held light before releasing it
in the directions
of our dreams

 

For dVersePoets Quadrille Light Challenge.
See how others responded HERE.

Twins, for FOTD, Oct 14, 2024

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For FOTD Oct 14, 2024

The Numbers Game #43, Oct 14, 2024. Please Play Along!!!

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Welcome to “The Numbers Game #43”. Today’s number is 164. To play along, go to your photos file and type that number into the search bar. Then post a selection of the photos you find under that number and include a link to your blog in my Numbers Game blog of the day. If instead of numbers, you have changed the identifiers of all your photos into words, pick a word or words to use instead, and show us a variety of photos that contain that word in the title.

This prompt will repeat each Monday with a new number. If you want to play along, please put a link to your blog in comments below. Below are my contributions to the album:

Click on first photo to enlarge all photos. Then click on the arrows!

Up
Peek in the foliage. You might find your ball.

The Wall for dVerse Poets, Oct 13, 2024

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The Wall

Somewhere the sun is shining––
somewhere behind me, no doubt.
But I am facing a wall
that is gray and cracked
and reflects no sunlight.

It seems, rather, to soak up everything
that bumps against it,
thinks its thoughts around it,
sits in front of it.

It is a wall sponge.
Right now it has soaked up
every memory
I have of sun.I try to follow
that memory
into it,
but it rejects only me.

I cannot follow
anything
I have put into it––
any thought,
wish,
dream,
memory,
aspiration.

I put my hand against it
and I can feel it draining molecules.
There is a tingling sensation
as they flow out horizontally.
I try to send some bit of sensibility
along with them,
to give me a clue
as to where they go
and what they encounter
there,
but I know that it is futile.

Where every lost part of me goes,
I cannot follow.
I wonder if at death
all of me will finally
flow into the wall,

No way to know
without the ultimate sacrifice.
I have tried, out of curiosity,
to hold my breath;
but I always take that first wide gasp of air
long before unconsciousness.

I have thought of
slashing wrists,
but fail just short
of any scratchings that bring blood.

I do not know if it is fear of dying
or that I value life more than I think I do,
but I have failed that final test a time or two.
I go on living what life
I can experience,
now that I have faced the wall.

It is by choice, you know, that I sit here.
I could walk to the window
and even out the door.
I could take that long walk to the sea wall
that I used to take each morning.

I could go for coffee in the palapa beach restaurant
where I have never failed to meet
someone of my acquaintance,
or shop in the mercado
or go for a swim in the sea.

I once loved all these things.
But since the wall,
everything not the wall
has leached out of my life.
I have not chosen for this to happen,
but nonetheless it has.

Perhaps it is ambition I’ve lost to the wall—
or hope or curiosity.
Perhaps everything that kept me engaged in life
has already left me and gone into that gray world
where I cannot follow.

Now I sit here,
facing it,
acknowledging my failure
as well as its exclusivity.
Somewhere the sun is shining––
somewhere behind me, no doubt.

But I am facing a wall.

 

For dVerse Poets

Sunset over Lake Chapala, For Cellpic Sunday

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Taken Oct 10, 2024 from my back terrace.

For Cellpic Sunday

Today’s Hibiscus, for FOTD Oct 13, 2024

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The bush is covered with these dinnerplate-sized yellow hibiscuses
and as you can see, buds promise more in the near future.

For Cee’s FOTD

Fraud!!!

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My doorbell just rang and I asked who it was before I opened the door. A man answered that it was the post office and that he had a package for me. When I took the package he asked for my signature on two forms, then said I owed 500 pesos customs. I went to get the money and before I gave it to him asked to see the form that declared that I owed the money as the customs charge was for more than the stated value of the item and I had never had to pay a customs fee before in 23 years of receiving goods by delivery and mail. He stammered and tried to rip the address label off.. as though it would be under it. I asked him to tell me his name and he scribbled it so it was indecipherable. Then I asked him his name and he said it was Cesar Lopez but when I looked at the scribbled name, I saw there was no way it read Lopez…I told him I was going to go to the post office to see if there was indeed a charge and he said he would call them. He was supposedly talking to someone but I could hear that his phone was still ringing so it was impossible and I pointed this out. Then he made another phone call and a woman answered and seemed to be very angry so he hung up. I started across the road to ask a Mexican friend for help and to see what he thought. When I did the man went over to a man on a motorcycle around the corner who evidently had driven him there. They talked and he climbed on the motorcycle and said to forget the charge and they took off. Long story short. Do not believe everything you are told. Ask for proof. I almost pd. the 500 pesos without disputing it.

Before and After

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I just spent a few early morning hours repainting the ledge on the wall. If you see the before and after photos below, you will see why it was necessary. It has been for a long time but the garden tour I’m participating in in a week (yikes) served as incentive to finally do so. There are plants and sculptures that go on the wall. I’ll take a photo when the paint dries and Pasiano is here to help me lift the heavy stones.

Actually, I completed this project hours ago but when i went out to take the “after ” photo, I spotted a Bird of Paradise clump that badly needed thinning out and that led to another and another and so….that led to having to come in to bandage all the cuts and pokes that could have been avoided if I’d just used gloves. Story of my life.